If you struggle with perfectionism, this is for you! 🫠

Confidence is the currency that will enable you to grow in your career, yet many of us find it hard to build it within a workplace that wasn’t made for us.

The challenge is, if we want to change the workplace, we have to change who we are within it.

I was lucky enough to hear Barbara Corcoran (from the US version of Dragon's Den, Shark Tank) speak at an event my husband was emceeing last week, and she has a big, new fan in me.​​

Here’s why:

• She didn’t do well at school and struggled with it [side note: I now see that ADHD very much impacted my school career, but at the time, I just found it hard].
• She started her real estate business with a $1000 loan.
• She didn’t just say, ‘I am going to be a good real estate agent’, she said; ‘I am going to be the best in NYC’, and she did it.
• She built her business and exited for $66 million.
• She spoke of the power of hiring for entrepreneurial spirit over everything else, and investing in women returning to the workforce.

But the real lessons for all of you, my brilliant heart-led soul-sisters:

• She is absolutely and truly authentic, and it shone from the stage, she built her career as who she truly is.
• When men tried to marginalise her as her career grew, she simply became more determined to be the very best.
• She was clear that as long as we feel hard done by, or like we are the victim of our situations, we won’t be able to break free of it.
• She was clear on not selling yourself short… EVER. When something feels out of alignment or off, she says no.

And finally, she was super clear on how we build confidence.

We do it by trying, by getting things wrong, and by learning that it is okay to get things wrong.

Fear of getting things wrong gets in the way of trying things that could end up being really right. If we fail to experiment, we fail to change. But overcoming perfectionism isn’t easy.

The way we handle stress can be a little different for us all. Do you over-function, over-achieve, over-deliver, over-work and need to do less? Or you under function, that might take the form of procrastination and perfectionism, and need to do more?

Just to be clear, they can both show up for us differently at different times, and perfectionism and fear of getting things wrong, gets in the way of both.

When we over-do we are determined to never drop the ball on anything, supercharged by shame and low self esteem.

When we under-do we are simply overwhelmed. The brain is trying to keep us as safe as it can, and sometimes that means doing nothing at all.

The key is to learn what it takes for you to move past it. If we can make ourselves do something once in a way that serves us, whether not overworking or not procrastinating, the anxiety we experience the next time reduces by half, we do it again and it keeps going down.

Start to recognise when it is showing up for you during your week and what it is making you do. Then you can look at why it is happening and how you can create better habits to support it.

If you want to learn how to do that with friends, then hit reply and I will make sure you are on the waitlist for Bloom. The doors open next month.

You don’t need to be like Barbara or Beyoncé my friends, you just need to be like you. Authentically you...

...and I’m always rooting for you. And us.